Ebb Tide (Ella Wood Book 3)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  The next morning, Emily changed clothing and fastened her hair with the few pins that had survived the journey. Feeling moderately civilized once again, she left for the depot with the others. The distance to Pocotaligo, the station closest to Port Royal Sound, was only a fraction of what they had covered the past week, but every one of the travelers was more than happy to sit down and let the locomotive carry them. Emily even heard Apollo sigh as he lowered his frame into the seat. The miles passed slowly, but Emily had never been more thankful for the railroad.

  When the train stopped at Yemassee for fuel and water, they disembarked to purchase food from a small inn located near the depot. The fare was poor—mashed rutabagas with bits of tough meat that Emily preferred not to identify—but it filled their bellies. As they walked back to the train, Sarah suddenly shoved Emily down a narrow side street littered with trash.

  “He here, miss.” Sarah’s face was a stark mask of terror.

  Emily’s stomach lurched.

  Apollo and Trudy followed them warily into the alley. “Who, Sarah?” Apollo asked.

  “M-Mr. Black. I seen ’im by de station.”

  “It can’t be!” Emily inched an eyeball around the corner. It took her a moment to locate him, but sure enough, there was Thad, systematically popping his head inside each rail car. Suddenly lightheaded, she shrank back into the alley. How could Thad possibly have known to follow? Was it a desperate ploy when his northbound search proved futile? Or had he somehow stumbled across their trail? She meant to voice her questions aloud, but only the first word squeaked out. “How—?”

  Apollo’s face muscles grew rigid. “Herod.”

  Emily studied him more closely. “Tell me.”

  “De night at Ella Wood, I thought I seen him.”

  That’s why Apollo had been so vigilant. “You should have said something.”

  “What diff’rence would it hab made?”

  None, she conceded. None at all. They had taken a calculated risk; now they had to deal with the consequences.

  She figured rapidly. “It’s only eight or nine miles to Pocotaligo. We’ll have to walk it. From there, we can follow the south bank of the sound to Hilton Head.” She didn’t know yet how they’d gain access to the island. She’d cross that proverbial bridge if and when she came to it. But first, they had to get out of town without being seen.

  Emily peered around the corner again. Thad was striding down the middle of the street, his eyes probing the buildings on either side. She shrank back, shoving the others down the alley. “He’s coming!”

  They sprinted through the narrow fissure, dodging crates and stumbling over debris. Their footsteps clattered off the brick like a regiment of cavalry. Apollo careened around the corner first, followed by the women—Sarah, then Trudy, then Emily. But Emily paused for a fraction of a second to look back—just as Thad passed the far end of the alley.

  Their eyes locked. His face opened with recognition then blackened with rage. “Emily!”

  She uttered a word she’d been taught never to say and tore after the others.

  A pair of Confederate soldiers emerged from a building just as Emily flew past. She aimed directly for one of them, slamming into him full tilt. He caught her and held her steady. “Easy, miss.”

  “Please help me!” She didn’t have to manufacture her fear. “My ex-fiancé is coming. If he catches me, he’s going to kill me!”

  Thad wheeled around the corner of the alley as she finished speaking. Emily yanked out of the soldier’s hands and flew after the slaves disappearing around the front of the slumbering locomotive. Behind her, she heard the soldiers’ angry confrontation, heard Thad’s curses. But this time she didn’t look back.

  Far ahead, Apollo led the others into the woods. Emily followed, feeling the brambles catch at her skirt. Her ploy wouldn’t stop Thad for long. If only they could find someplace to hide!

  Their escape seemed endless. Emily’s breath came in painful gasps. Her legs ached. Her side ached. She’d lost all control of her muscles. Her body moved rhythmically. Automatically. She dodged trees, plowing headlong through underbrush, following the sound of the others. How far had they traveled? One mile? Two?

  “Halt!” The command rang through the woods, silencing the noise ahead of her. Faintly, Emily could hear the sounds of pursuit behind her. She burst around a tree and slammed into Apollo. Her valise—the only bundle that had survived the mad dash—lay at his feet. The slaves’ hands were in the air, their bodies drenched with perspiration, their lungs heaving.

  Emily gasped for air beside them. She could see the sentry through the underbrush, only a few steps away. They’d reached the Confederate line.

  The sound of crashing footsteps intensified behind her.

  “Please!” she cried to the soldier. “You have to help us! My ex-fiancé is chasing me. If he catches—”

  Too late. Thad burst through the trees, a pistol in his hand.

  She turned to face him. “Thad, I—”

  She broke off. His face was livid, fearful in its deformity. He didn’t even pause to assess the situation. His eyes narrowed. His hand raised.

  The sentry’s rifle turned in Thad’s direction. “Drop the gun!”

  Thad’s hand steadied. He took aim.

  Both weapons fired simultaneously.

  Emily heard each separate report. She saw Thad flinch. She felt the bullet’s impact spin her body to one side. Then she crashed earthward and lay staring up at the clouds in shock.

  Trudy screamed.

  Leaves scuffled. A branch broke. Footsteps fled into the woods.

  Emily could feel the rise and fall of her own shallow breath. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the sky had turned a dull shade of gray.

  The sentry crouched over her. “You’ve been hit, miss.”

  She blinked. His movements seemed slow and exaggerated, as if he were acting out a part in a play. As if she were watching from a theater seat while these events happened to someone else.

  A knife flashed in his hand. She heard the rip of fabric. Felt his fingers probing the skin of her left shoulder. And then the pain hit. Fiery icicles of fury. Each breath seared all the way to her toes.

  The gray haze of the sky spread across the man’s features. “The bullet went clean through. No broken bones. I’ve seen men recover from far worse than this.”

  The rip of more fabric. The scream of cold fire as a bandage was placed over her wounds.

  The sky encroached further, but not before she saw Trudy step forward. Slowly. Slyly. Her arm raised above the kind young soldier.

  Emily watched the rock descend in slow motion. Watched the young man hang in the air with surprise. Watched him slide to the earth and slump into a puddle.

  Then the gray heavens engulfed her.

  18

  Emily’s eyes blinked open. She lay on her back staring at the wooden planks of a roof supported by dark, dusty beams. A spiderweb spread itself across one corner. She glanced around for the insect and found herself in a room about eight feet wide by ten feet long, furnished only with a camp bed and a crate labeled “ammunition.” Light filtered in through a single unshuttered window.

  The door opened, admitting a burst of sunlight and a woman with a dour face and a dumpling-shaped silhouette. Emily cringed at the unexpected intrusion, causing pain to erupt in her shoulder.

  “I’m not going to bite you.” The woman’s tone was just shy of friendly, each word encased in the hard accent of the North.

  “Where am I?” Emily croaked. Her throat was a desert.

  The woman set a platter containing bread and broth on the ammunition crate. “The United States General Hospital. Or rather, a room behind it. The director wouldn’t put you in the ward with the men.”

  A hospital with a Northern nurse? She must be in Port Royal, though she had no idea how she’d gotten there. “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I…think I may have been shot.”r />
  “You were.” The woman cupped the back of Emily’s head and held a glass of water to her lips. Some spilled and seeped under Emily’s collar. She hadn’t drunk nearly enough when the glass was removed.

  “What else do you remember?”

  Emily strained her memory, finding only gray fog where color and images should have been. She shook her head weakly.

  “Hmmm…convenient.” The woman plunked the glass of water back on the tray. “I’m not the only one suspicious as to why a rebel woman would enter a Union army outpost. Plenty of us thought Doc was foolish to patch you up.”

  Emily clamped down on the indignation rising in her throat. She had no energy for a fight, especially when so many questions still needed answers. “Who’s Doc?”

  “Major Jonathan Davis, best surgeon in the Department of the South, who could have better spent his time fixing up one of our boys. Goodness knows we get enough of them.”

  A memory churned deep in Emily’s mind. Department of the South—she’d heard that somewhere. Recently. “How’d I get here?”

  “We’d all like to know. The Negro man who carried you in told quite a fabrication.”

  “Apollo,” she whispered. Snippets of memory broke free, assembling piece by piece. “Trudy…Sarah!” She tried to sit up but found her left arm bound to her chest. Pain dragged her back to the mattress. “The women…are they here, too? Is Sarah all right?”

  “I haven’t seen any women.”

  “They’re Negroes. Slaves. Sarah’s life was in danger. I brought her here.”

  The woman sized her up with a skeptical eye. “If that’s true, you probably traded her life for yours. There’s talk of charging you as a spy.”

  A spy! “On what evidence?”

  She shrugged. “That’s not my concern.”

  “May I see Apollo?”

  “Not until you’ve been questioned. I have orders.”

  The nurse propped a smelly pillow behind Emily’s back and shoveled soup into her mouth without further conversation. When the bowl was empty, she unceremoniously handed off the piece of bread and carted the empty dishes to the door. “Doc will be in to see you sometime this afternoon. Don’t try to go anywhere. There’s a guard outside your door.” With that curt dismissal, she disappeared.

  Emily chewed her bread, staring at the underside of the roof. The food had given her strength, but the woman’s accusation drained it away. A spy? She’d never even considered the possibility.

  The room dimmed then brightened with a soft thump. “Hey, Miss Emily. How you feelin’?”

  Emily blinked at the figure that materialized at the foot of her bed. “Apollo!”

  “Shhh…” He pointed toward the entrance. “Guard.”

  She dropped her voice. “How’d you get in here?”

  He grinned and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Nobody watch de window.”

  She chuckled then winced at the pain in her shoulder. “How did I get here? I don’t remember anything after Thad shot me.”

  “You black out right after de sentry put on de bandages. Den de sentry black out.” He grinned again, and an image of Trudy holding a rock flashed behind her eyes. “After dat, I picked you up and carried you till we run into Yankee sentries. One look at you and we got a boat ride straight to de hospital.”

  She stared at Apollo in wonder. “You must have carried me all night.”

  He shrugged. “Few hours. De important thing be we all safe.”

  “Is Thad dead?”

  “Nah, he run off.”

  “What about Sarah and Trudy?”

  “Dey both here.”

  Emily smiled, feeling sleep begin to tug at her eyelids. “How are they?”

  “Settlin’ into town not far away. A Negro town wid a church an’ a school an’ house after house after house. Miss Emily, de Negroes run it demselves. Dey run de whole town!” He shook his head in wonder. “In my whole life, I never ’magined anything like it.”

  Emily stared at him in amazement. The rumors didn’t mention anything that grand. “I expect you’ll want to stay.” She couldn’t stop him if he did. And he certainly would.

  His teeth flashed, a row of white daisy petals. “It be a fine place, Miss Emily. Finest place I ever seen. But I ain’t stayin’.”

  “You aren’t?”

  “No, miss.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “See, unless you got a trade like blacksmithin’, de people here grow cotton. De Yankees pay ’em, but I don’ wanna hoe cotton. I’s all set to be de butler at Ella Wood. I know silver an’ china. But dere ain’t no big houses in Mitchelville.”

  She lifted her head off the pillow, ignoring the searing pain. Her eyes nearly popped. “You’re going home? To Ella Wood?”

  His face grew serious. “No, miss.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “You still goin’ North?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Den I intend to go wid you, jus’ like yo’ daddy said.”

  Understanding settled over her. She lay back against the mattress and closed her eyes, stirring up a puff of foul-smelling dust. The North had wealthy homes in need of servants. She owed Apollo a debt. But could she knowingly help him to freedom after the promise she’d made to her mother?

  On the other hand, he was simply following orders. William had known full well what would happen when he issued them.

  She had planned to answer. She tried to speak, to tell him…something. But the words dissipated before they formed, and she couldn’t quite fend off the strong arms of sleep.

  ***

  Emily was reawakened by the entrance of a man with a round belly, a bald head, and compassionate eyes behind the glass coins of his spectacles. Apollo had vanished.

  “So, you finally decided to rejoin the living.” The man’s smile pushed his cheeks into golf balls.

  “Dr. Davis?”

  He dipped in a thick-waisted bow. “At your service.”

  She struggled to pull herself into wakefulness. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Today? A few hours. Though you’ve been unconscious for about three days. Let’s take a look at that wound, shall we?”

  Peeling back the bandage, he gave a satisfied nod. “Clean entry and exit. No sign of gangrene. It’s healing nicely. We’ll keep the arm bound a few more days.” He replaced the gauze, the only thing covering her where the bloody shoulder of her shirt had been cut away. “Now then, would you care to tell me how you stepped into the path of a bullet?”

  “Apollo didn’t explain?”

  “I heard one story. I just wanted to hear yours.”

  She sighed. “I’m not working for the Confederate government.”

  To her surprise, the doctor chuckled. “Did Nurse Buckland give you an earful of her spy theory this morning? She may be an efficient nurse, but she’s known to drift some from the truth.”

  “Then…I’m not under suspicion?” Exhaustion made her thick and heavy and slow.

  “Oh, everyone coming in from the other side is under some amount of suspicion, whether they’re deserters or civilians. But no one’s looking to hang you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She relaxed into the pillow. She had nothing to hide. Too tired to recite a long story, she gave him the abbreviated version. “I was on my way to Baltimore to free two slave women when someone found out and pursued us. We had to change course.”

  “Port Royal is quite a detour,” the doctor observed. “Why Baltimore?”

  “I’m a student at the Maryland Institute.” It was the simplest explanation she could arrive at with her head in a muddle. Fortunately, it was also true. “I have a letter from the principal to prove it.”

  “Then who is the Negro man?”

  “My father’s—” She couldn’t help it; she gave a mighty yawn. “—slave.”

  Dr. Davis patted her on the arm. “I believe you’ve taxed your strength long enough. Go back to sleep. I’ll talk to
my supervisor, Dr. Pyle, and we’ll figure out what to do with you in the morning.”

  “Dr. Pyle,” Emily muttered, sliding into oblivion. But her memory gave another gentle tug. “Dr. William Pyle?”

  “Do you know him?”

  Dr. William Pyle…the Department of the South…

  Missouri’s letter!

  Understanding pried open her eyes. “I know his orderly, Private Solomon Beatty. Do you think I could speak with him?”

  He observed her thoughtfully. “Let me see what I can do.”

  ***

  Emily slept again and woke. Slept, ate, slept, and slowly regained her strength. Apollo returned infrequently for brief snatches of conversation. The rest of the time he spent planting and hoeing cotton. As much as he disliked the task, he coveted the paycheck.

  Five days passed during which Dr. Davis unbound her arm and fashioned a sling. With her injury siphoning off less energy, she endured long stretches of wakefulness spent staring at the boards overhead. They were nailed unevenly—hastily—as though permanence had never been a factor. Clouds replaced sunlight at the window, and rain seeped between the shingles, dropping onto her linens to create fingerprints of moisture. A small rivulet flowed down the far wall and collected in a pond before the door, eliciting colorful phraseology from Nurse Buckland each time she delivered a meal. When the sun returned, it propagated the thick, musty smell of rotting timbers.

  During her confinement, Emily made a game of identifying sounds from beyond her walls. The indistinct conversation of men passed often, along with the thud of hooves on dirt. She heard the creak of wheels and the barking of dogs. A slamming door. A screeching hawk. Even the occasional laughter of a child. Her little cabin must be near the army encampment, but she felt too weak to rise and look out the window.

  She also spent a significant amount of time fantasizing about the moment she would finally look into Jovie’s eyes. She placed the scene in a variety of locations—the dockside along the Patapsco River, on the sidewalk outside the Maryland Institute, in front of the theater where they’d watched the Booth brothers perform—but every version followed the same basic script. Their eyes would catch and hold. Jovie would smile in that slow way he had, with one corner of his mouth rising first. He’d hasten to embrace her, and she’d whisper the sweet words he’d demanded from her so long ago: “You have all of me—heart, body, and soul.”